healthy ideas for packed lunches

[lucyk]

hello my son is starting school next week and will be taking a packed lunch as have no
experience of older children at school can you give me any tips on what to put in and should i put some wipes in etc for sticky hands son will eat apples but only if peeled any tips

Lucy, my ds is starting this week. I'm going for egg mayonnaise sandwiches because he likes them and will eat them, a satsuma, an apple, a banana, some cashews (if the school will allow it, not sure yet) and a box of raisins. And a bottle of water too. I (say now!) am not going to bow to pressure to include crisps or chocolate so I'm sure I will be very unpopular if everyone else has them but it's just too bad! I won't be putting wipes in because I reckon he can just go and wash his hands if they get sticky.

www. I love egg mayo sandwiches but I find that they tend to be a bit stinky if stored for a while.

lucy, if you cut the apple up and then put the segments back together and wrap in cling film it should last until lunchtime. a little lemon juice stops it browning but does affect the taste. I wouldn't bother with wipes, the children will have somewhere to wash hands.

I prefer coolbag type lunch bags and use a small ice block every day to keep germs to a minimum. I've also seen lots of the rigid plastic boxes bounce open when dropped in the playground, spilling the contents all over. My kids sometimes have yoghurts with a plastic spoon but these tend to make the lunch bag messy if they bring the empty carton home. I have also used tinned fruit in a small air tight container as they generally prefer this to fresh. They also like pasta and small pastries (eg sausage rolls).

Frubes are handy instead of yogurts - they are fromage frais in a tube and it is sucked out a hole at the top.
At the moment dd ( age 8) has chocolate spread sandwiches fairly frequently because she is going through a faddy stage. No holes in the teeth yet. Still slim. Eats decently at home

My dd age 9 loves a small container of dip with chips or veggies. I sometimes make homemade peanut butter crackers. Cut up friut is good just remember the small icepac to keep cold. Theres lots of things just cant think at the moment.

lucyk - how about grapes instead of apples. My daughter only likes apples 'like a baby' - ie peeled and chopped , so I don't bother for her lunchbox.

Those little boxes of raisins are great. Sometimes I give dd yoghurt coated raisins/apricots, etc as a treat. (Probably got too much sugar in but at least fruit bit is good!) Dd gets a bag of crisps once a week which she looks forward to. To keep lunch fresher, I make dd a drink in a sport bottle the night before and keep it in the fridge overnight. By the morning it's cold enough to keep sarnies, etc, cool. By the way, peanut butter is not allowed at our school and probably others. Don't know what I'll do when ds starts next year as he loves it in his sandwiches!

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Keep the ideas coming ...

Just a thought though - will the sausages help the bugs breed if not stored in the fridge.

My DD takes her lunchbox out of the fridge at 8am and she will not eact until 12 noon - is there a problem here or not?

Thanks

I cook pizza (cheese & tomato) then freeze it in slices. ds takes it in to school frozen and by lunchtime it's at room temperature. He also has 'cold dogs' ie hot dog rolls from the freezer split open and the chill from the defrosting roll keeps the frankfurter fresh. He also loves the sliced and reformed apple in cling-film, and those tiny peeled baby carrots.

My kids really like "Zaps" bars which you can buy in health food shops and the organic section in Sainsbury's. They're packaged like sweets but are made from fruit and oats.

At dd's school sweets and chocolate are allowed which is annoying as dd gets given them by her pals when I would prefer she didn't have them.

There was an article in I think the Observer about 2-3 weeks ago about acrylamide. Basically they think it is in all foods cooked at very high temperatures ... when you think about it this is an awful lot of food we count as normal. Something is going to kill you sometime ...

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The apples might go brown if they are peeled.

Chocolate is good for energy in the afternoons. It doesn't have to be "sweets", it could be some sort of chocolate fruit biscuit.

I agree about yogurt in tubes. It saves them losing the spoon as well!

Thermos do little ice blocks (about 3" square) in packs of 2 for 79p-ish. You might still catch some in supermarkets near the picnic and barbeque stuff if you're lucky. Insulated cool bags help too, but they are harder to keep clean inside. Some schools have ridiculous storage areas for packed lunches, ours uses trolleys, but some of these are stood right next to radiators! I'm amazed that more children don't suffer from endless stomach bugs.

Another great addition - for the lunch box and the teeth - Babybels. They are mini cheeses in a wax wrapper - my lot love them and they are easy for small hands to peel. I save little plastic tubs (for coleslaw) and occasionally do a pasta salad in them for variation.
Tip of the day - greaseproofed bread wrappers and the inner sleeve of cereal packets are ideal sandwich and freezer packaging! Ditch the clingfilm!

lucyk

Our ds (4 1/2)has just extended from half day including lunch to full day. We decided that we needed to up his energy levels to try and cope with this so have started to give him small portions of pasta or rice salad, instead of marmite sandwiches, in plastic container with lid, but easy to open. He loves it and feels quite grown up, although our current problem is that he seems to take so long that he doesn't get to finish the rest (banana, yoghurt...)!!
For morning snack time he has a cereal bar, although I'm not sure if they are always acceptable due to nut content.

LizS